Well I feel both of you are right, but it would be a pain to read groups where you could only understand some of the messages because some elite group are discussing in some language you don't know. The question from the original poster (as far as my two years of French can help me) was basicly: We always hear about Python being used in the US (mentions Google and a few other), but what about France? There was a lot more, but this is the core of the question. I would like to extend this to Europe (or Asia or Anarctica or any other part of the world outside US). Where are people using Python? I can stat by telling that I am Danish, but working with Python in Ireland (in a job I found through this group).

> Well I feel both of you are right, but it would be a pain to read > groups where you could only understand some of the messages because > some elite group are discussing in some language you don't know. > The question from the original poster (as far as my two years of > French can help me) was basicly: > We always hear about Python being used in the US (mentions Google and > a few other), but what about France? There was a lot more, but this > is the core of the question. > I would like to extend this to Europe (or Asia or Anarctica or any > other part of the world outside US). Where are people using Python? > I can stat by telling that I am Danish, but working with Python in > Ireland (in a job I found through this group).

Well... yes, we have computers too here... Then, an extension to computer is operating system (such as VMS). And we also use to put some application software on top os OS (such as Addition-v4.6). And some of the best of us have knowledge in programming (COBOL-32). I've heard about some Xinul (or Nuxil, I can't remember...), a kind of graphical computer-human interface. And finally, yes we have some Python too. But today, there's some snow on Paris, and I guess they are sleeping in a warm place of the Zoo.

*** End of joke namespace:

We are trying hard to organize here an European meeting for Pythoners. But it's difficult, because there is at least one major Python event in the US every 6 months... Have a look at the non-english page on Python home:

Being a swede in France I had the privilege to understand both the original question and Fredrik's comment. And to answer the question: at Xerox research (XRCE in Grenoble) we do quite a lot of prototyping work in Python. We find it hard to convince Python developers to move to Java, and ususally they're back to Python before long.

As for me, I can give an very successful example in the world of banking (handling checks in EUROS) where the choice of PYTHON allowed us to be cheaper than the competition (develoment time is infinitely less important[significant?] than with JAVA or C solutions) and to reduce dealys for clients

> Making postings in a non-English language will probably result in not > many people answering. Bad English is usually more understood then > French.

Nonsense.. imho this is a narrow point of view.

If you are French and want to find French speaking Python programmers it makes perfect sense to post here in you own language. If YOU cannot rad it, then true, you will pass over it. 'more understood' ---by whom?

Only those who can read/write French will likely be suitable. The same applies for any language. Thre are so many progammers around the world, for whom English is not therir mother tongue. I am forever impressed a the additioanl obstacles which must be over come.. first to learn english then to learn computer programming.

There are many smart people in the world can READ english, especially computer or science-oriented text, but perhaps cannot write or speak it well. There are others who cannot conduct a normal converstation, but can write better englsh than many native speakers.

For Asians, there is an even greater set of hurdle to surmount, because writing systems and langauge roots have almost phonetic, structural, sytntactic or etymological connections whatever. For Asians going to UK or USA, it is very expensive, so mostly on the rich and priviledged can afford a extended trip whihc allows them to develop fluent language skills. Ther is a very high awareness and so local english langauge schools are big business [I don't know about Asians visiting Australia but imagine that is more and more attractive option]

For example there might be many people right now in Korea or China or Japan reading this newgsgroup who do not find it easy to contribute, even though they may be proficient Python programmers.

European languagse are really are very close together. Dutch, Germans and Scandanavians are famously brilliant for fluent and very correct English. This is partly linguistic, since Olde English has inherited much from them, but also cultural.

France on the other hand, is notoriously proud/fearful of losing the distinction of language. Thus movies and TV are almsot all dubbed. People lose out because they do not have exposure to even hear english much. Result: catch-22 [attrappement-22] many young people find it much harder to learn, unless they are fortunate enough to travel and stay in English speaking countries, or where there is abundant english use.